[H-GEN] Priorities

[Nick Kwiatkowski]

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On Thu, 6 Jun 2003, Robert Brockway  wrote:

>> What is the logic behind negative nice values having higher priorities
>> than positive ones? At first glance it seems a bit backwards, but I'm
>> sure there must be a good (and unknown to me) reason for it.
>>
>> In fact how come they range from -20 to +19, why not 0-39 ?
>
> I'm reasonably sure that originally nice values were only positive and
> that negative nice values were only added later.  So I guess it could be
> seen as historical.

Yup, Rob is quite correct. The original range values were 0 to 39 with the
default value being 20 [1]. Some Un*x versions still use that format....AIX
:)

Ciao,

Nik

[1] "The Magic Garden Explained - The internals of Unix System V Release
4", Berny Goodheart, James Cox.

Nickolas Kwiatkowski
IT Architect
AMS Solutions Enablement (ASE)
Application Management Services
IBM Global Services Australia
phone:  07 3887 6304,  mobile:  0412 121 276,  email:  nickolas at au1.ibm.com
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" - Albert Einstein


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